


Reaching Out

by samariumwriting



Series: Dimidue Week [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimidue Week (Fire Emblem), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Grief/Mourning, M/M, No Spoilers, Past Character Death, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 17:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20450891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: The war was over, the dust had settled, and there was somewhere Dimitri still needed to go. He needed to go back to where this all started.





	Reaching Out

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Dimidue Week prompt healing, I hope you enjoy

The war was over, the dust had settled, and there was somewhere Dimitri still needed to go. He needed to go back to where this all started.

He’d visited the grave where his father had been laid to rest. He’d put flowers down, the Professor at his side. But his father’s body was the only body that had been recovered. The only one, in the ensuing chaos, that was important enough to be removed.

Ghosts still haunted his thoughts in the quiet moments between short bursts of happiness. Dimitri knew he had to lay them to rest.

Very few people came with him. Felix, Ingrid, and Dedue. They wanted to keep it as quiet as possible that they were going, because of all the history. Barely a single person of Faerghus had gone to Duscur bearing anything other than weapons in the last nine years. No one had gone bearing flowers.

It was a mass grave. The names of each fallen knight were commemorated, of course. Everyone who had died, bar those of Duscur who had been slain alongside them. But there were no individual plots. Just a single headstone, for all those lives.

Dimitri tried not to tread on Felix and Ingrid’s toes too much. Their grief was no less important than his own. They had lost someone dear to them on that day as well, and when the ash had settled he had not supported them. None of them had supported each other.

It was a damn shame. It had taken them all far too long to reach this point.

Dimitri hung back a little, watching the field. It had been left, completely empty, for years now. Once, this was a road. Now it was abandoned. Very few flowers grew. It was...lifeless. There had been too much death here.

Silently, he reached for Dedue’s hand. Wordlessly, he took it. Felix was saying something, talking to Ingrid - probably something about Glenn, some old memory (nine years Felix had been without his brother and Dimitri had only spoken to him about it twice) - something that neither of them could hear.

“The flowers we brought,” he said, keeping his voice down as much as possible. The rift between him and Felix was mending more with every passing day, but he didn’t want to strain anything by offending him now. “If we planted them, would they grow?”

Dedue looked at the carefully made bundle in Dimitri’s hands and shook his head. “No,” he said. “They would not. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “But when we have the chance...I’d like to come back here. I think this field has been dead long enough.”

Dedue’s smile was soft and patient. The whole day, he stayed by Dimitri’s side. He’d done so for their whole journey there and did the same on their return, but Dimitri caught his far away look as they crossed the mountains that separated Duscur from Faerghus once more.

“I’d like to make some form of memorial,” he said, and Dedue’s attention was, as always, immediately fixed on him. “For the people who lost their lives in the suppression of Duscur. That brutal slaughter...it would be a crime to forget.”

“I cannot ask that of you,” Dedue said. “Not as my liege nor as my friend. It is not a responsibility you should bear on your shoulders.”

Dimitri sighed. “It was my kingdom, Dedue. I was the heir. I bear the responsibility for the unforgivable things that happened to Duscur.” It was the guilt he could never allay. The revenge he could never attain, for people he never even met. An atrocity for which he could never atone.

“No,” Dedue said firmly. His gaze was firm, his frown set. “Those who gave the orders are dead. The people who led the armies against Duscur are also dead, never to return. You did neither of those things, and hurt none of my people. Let yourself move on.”

“I cannot stop myself from bearing that guilt as if it were my own,” he replied. He didn’t know how to just...let it all go. He didn’t know if that was even possible.

“You are too soft,” Dedue said, but there was no malice in his tone. Just a quiet sadness. He knew there was no use in telling Dimitri this, but he said it anyway. “There is no use in spending time and effort on remembering the past if the future will be no better. To heal, you must move on. Create a world where those regrets are useless.”

“To heal…” he said, unable to stop the thoughtful hum that escaped his lips with those words. Healing was...not a foreign concept for him. In the immediate wake of the war, he always viewed his return to his senses as just that. An abandonment of the things that were keeping him away from awareness, with all the pain that entailed.

He was no longer that beast, lurking in the dark, unworthy of anything but death. He was something else, and that hurt. He could no longer dismiss each face as nameless and inconsequential, just another body on a very high pile of corpses. The memory of each one tore him apart, and from there knowing that his revenge could never appease him meant that the memory of all the dead hurt ever more.

Healing...was something else. Healing wasn’t just moving onwards, trying to make up for everyone he’d hurt, but also helping himself. It wasn’t just forgiving Felix for his harsh words over the years. Healing would be accepting that he had a point and moving on from that. Healing. Moving on. Two things that, for so many years, had been completely beyond his imagination.

Moving on was hard when ghosts still clung to his cloak, dragging him backwards. Healing was difficult when sometimes he still felt like he was being crushed under the weight of his own sins.

“Dimitri,” Dedue said, interrupting his thoughts. He looked up. “I am not trying to make light of the struggles you face,” he explained. “Healing from this is perhaps not as easy as waiting for a wound to heal. But I will be at your side for it, if that is what you want.”

“Dedue, I…” he sighed. He wanted to feel better than he did. He wanted to be able to forgive himself for these things, to balance his unhappiness with new joys. He just didn’t know how. “If you can help me.”

“I can try,” he said. He reached across the gap between them, taking his hand and holding it in just the way he had earlier. His hands were large, warm, his skin hardened from years of physical work. Yet his touch was so soft, so gentle.

“You’re sure about the memorial?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dedue said. Despite the firmness of his tone, there was a new timbre to it. Something tender. “Everyone bears the mark of the tragedy that occurred.” His eyes fell on the carriage in front of them, which held Felix and Ingrid. “A visual reminder of the past will not help them look to the future. Though I think flowers in that field are a good idea.”

“You do?” he asked. It was...rare, to hear Dedue speak so candidly for so long. Dimitri wanted to hear all that he could of his friend’s true feelings.

Dedue nodded. “Perhaps if the land can heal, we can all move on. At the sight of life flourishing, maybe the dead will finally let go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you have emotions about these two sad bois like I do please feel free to leave a comment to scream and/or follow me on twitter @samariumwriting where I scream about this game extensively


End file.
